A MAN WHO INSISTS YOU HAVE A WEEKLY WEIGH-IN IS ENOUGH TO MAKE ANYONE REACH FOR THE HOBNOBS
AUTHOR kate Spicer, 52, lives in West london with her boyfriend, 47. I’VE been trying not to swear so much lately, the goal being to save my verbal armour for when it is truly warranted.
However, if a man ever asked, told or even politely suggested I lose some weight, I’d pepper him with four-letter bullets. I can’t imagine there is any other answer to give.
Alice Evans married Ioan Gruffudd when she was a textbook-beautiful young actress. Now she’s a beautiful 50-year-old woman who no longer fits into sample-sized dresses, he appears to have dumped her for a 29-year-old.
Asking your partner to stay any weight is wrong, but to confine it to the abnormally small size of a starlet is basically saying, I want you to look like a woman in a magazine. For ever.
That person telling you not to get fat is meant to be your ally in the struggle of life. Instead, they are treating you like a car that needs to come out of the body shop looking perfect so their friends can admire it. They want a status symbol.
Women aren’t designed to look like coltish 14-year-olds into their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. And men who can’t sustain interest beyond those fertile, slender years are shallow — a waste of a woman’s time.
I grew up in a family with a fair number of fatphobes and if I erred on the chubby side there would sometimes be the odd comment, a certain awareness you weren’t up to par.
Subsequently, I’ve dated the odd guy who liked and fancied me but would never consider going public with me.
One told me he’d never go out with me ‘properly’ because I wasn’t ‘hot’; another simply started seeing a 25-year-old who wore Herve Leger bandage dresses without really telling me it was over.
So I feel some empathy with what Alice Evans says she is dealing with. It is about pure objectification of a human; of you only having value if you meet certain beauty standards.
So many of us turn to comforteating when we are struggling in life. Weight and how we eat is proven to be bound to our mental health, our socioeconomic status, lack of sleep, trauma and depression.
So, gents, perhaps ask: ‘Are you OK?’ rather than insisting on a weekly weigh-in. Living with a man like that is enough to make anyone reach for the Hobnobs.
A man who can’t take those natural fluctuations and love you for who you are deserves both barrels of all the fourletter words. What a **** !